


Love's Refrain

by The_Kingmaker



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, hints of romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 15:38:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19212418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Kingmaker/pseuds/The_Kingmaker
Summary: "Bilbo stared, lips parted. He should not be surprised. After all, dwarves were known for their talented hands, able to smith the most delicate jewellery or the strongest sword. Still, he had never thought that music was included in their gift."





	Love's Refrain

Bilbo closed his eyes, relishing the caress of sunlight against his face. The sweet grass beneath his back filled his nose with its scent, and a gentle breeze teased the nearby heather. After the trials of their journey, Beorn’s homestead was an unexpected sanctuary: an idyll that reminded him of the best summer days in the Shire.

Everyone was taking the chance to relax, secure in the knowledge that they were safe. Mostly people slept or talked among themselves, enjoying a pipe or repairing travel-worn clothes. Dwalin had taken on the task of sharpening everyone’s blades while Fili and Kili explored Beorn’s lands, hopefully staying out of trouble as they did so.

No one seemed in any hurry to leave. No one, that was, except Thorin.

Bilbo frowned up at the fluffy clouds that skimmed across the sky. A handful of days ago, he had believed Thorin surly and cold, indifferent to anything but the pursuit of his quest. Then, he had faced down Azog as the forest burned: fire and fury.

A flush heated Bilbo’s cheeks as he remembered the moment Thorin was struck down. Even now, he could barely believe his own daring. He blamed the Took portion of his lineage. No Baggins would ever do something so – so stupid.

Tooks were ruled too often by their hearts, and it seemed his had spoken loud and clear. After years of nothing but passing fancies, it beat for Thorin alone, and that hug on the carrock had not helped matters.

He could still feel the weight of Thorin’s arms around him, clasping him close. The phantom scent of wood-smoke and sweat came back to him, and the dense warmth of Thorin’s fur coat pressed against his cheek anew.

‘Fool,’ Bilbo whispered to himself, his previous peace shattered by his own hopeless longing. He should be grateful for what he had: a friendship of sorts. Instead, here he lay, yearning for more. There were times and places for matters of the heart, and on an adventure to save a lost kingdom was not one of them: at least not to any hobbit with sense!

Besides, he doubted Thorin looked at him with anything like romantic regard. Dwarves were strong and serious, bold and brash: everything that Shirefolk were not.

Sitting up, Bilbo huffed, blowing back the curls from his brow. This was pointless. Perhaps his longing was silly at best, but he was damned if he was going to let it control him. He would not moon around and fret, not when Thorin had finally decided to welcome his company.

He would take what he could get. After all, friendship was a treasure all its own, and one he did not intend to squander.

A glance over the garden made him blink. The sunlight had taken on the golden gleam of a day in full swing, and everyone was making the most of it. Gandalf had even removed his hat and set it on the bench beside him as he puffed his pipe. Yet of Thorin, there was no sign.

Getting to his feet, Bilbo brushed the grass from his breeches. A few green stains lingered on the tan cloth, but far worse marred the fabric. Soot and blood and the Valar knew what from his trek through Golem’s caves. He would have to make laundry a priority before they were on the road once more.  
Turning towards the house, he stepped into the shadows of its rough-hewn eaves. The scent of fresh straw and pine tickled his nose, along with the subtle musk of Beorn’s animals. Yet it was not the fragrance of the place – how quick it came to smell like home – that made him pause on the threshold.

Of all the sounds that filled Beorn’s sanctuary, music was not one of them. Beorn had a pipe – Bilbo had seen him and Bofur comparing craftsmanship – but he had not heard the large man make a tune from it. Besides, a pipe was bright and bird-like. This melody sounded different, more akin to that which danced through the halls of Rivendell.

Yet to compare the refrain to the haunting notes of the elves did both a disservice. In Elrond’s domain, the music seemed ethereal: entwined with the air and the cascade of water. It carried with it a subtlety. This performance was a world apart, resonant and defiant to Bilbo’s ears. It stole his breath and carved its marks upon his bones.

The decisive notes blazed through his imagination, and words bloomed in his head: seeds responding to the first tender rains of spring. Never had music moved him so, nor told a story he could hear so plain within its melody.

He walked as if in a trance, ghosting over to the table. Paper whispered, and the ink pot gave a quiet chime as he opened it, but he paid it no mind. There was no room for such mundane sounds – not when his head brimmed with the beauty of the strings’ chorus. With each passing moment, the verses formed beneath the flurry of his scrappy quill. Blots and scratchings marked the page: the scars of perfection. 

At first, he had believed Thorin to be playing a piece of the dwarves – something passed down through the generations. Yet as he listened, he realised the truth of it. More than once, Thorin would repeat a bar or two, making alterations to the flow of the notes and the timbre of the chords. It was not the act of a performer correcting a mistake, but of an artist refining his creation.

Bilbo stared, lips parted. He should not be surprised. After all, dwarves were known for their talented hands, able to smith the most delicate jewellery or the strongest sword. Yet he had never thought that music was included in their gift. 

Sun streamed through the window, turning the fall of Thorin’s dark hair to shades of silver and brown. It bathed his face in gold, and Bilbo had never seen him look so soft. His features had not changed: they remained sharp and honed. Instead it was in the blue of his eyes and curve of his lips; his smile of satisfaction and the crease of concentration that hovered on his brow.

Turning back to his page, Bilbo stared at his scribbled verses. Abruptly, he felt like an intruder. Thorin was not performing a tune; he was lost in the act of creating one. Somehow, Bilbo doubted that he wanted an audience to his subtle joy.

He should go. It would not be hard to leave as quietly as he entered Beorn’s house. Thorin had not acknowledged him in any way: perhaps he had not noticed him arrive? If he could depart, unseen and unknown, like the burglar the Company believed him to be, then maybe Thorin would remain none-the-wiser to his presence.

Wetting his lips, Bilbo set the quill aside and silently stoppered the ink bottle once more. Every movement he made carried that strange, silent grace unique to hobbits when they wanted to avoid being noticed.

He was quiet as a mouse – so intent on his efforts to slip away that he did not notice the gentle notes of Thorin’s melody fall quiet. His fingertips skimmed the sheet of parchment, but before he could pick it up, a large, warm hand rested atop his.

It seemed that hobbits were not the only ones who could move quietly when they wished.

‘May I see?’

‘Oh it – it’s nothing –’ Contrary to his stammered excuses, Bilbo’s hand shifted, no longer hiding the writing beneath from Thorin’s gaze. His skin tingled with the warmth of Thorin’s touch, and his heart fluttered as callused fingers lingered, just for a moment, over his knuckles: Respect, not restraint.

Bilbo fidgeted where he sat, unaccountably nervous as Thorin turned his attention to the words inked upon the page. He could not bring himself to look into Thorin’s face – did not want to witness either anger or indifference in that noble expression.

‘You wrote this.’ It was not a question, but of all the things he could have heard in Thorin’s voice, soft awe was not what Bilbo expected. He blinked, risking a glance upwards and meeting Thorin’s gaze as he nodded. ‘You wrote of our journey.’

‘No, I didn’t.’ Bilbo straightened his shoulders. Perhaps in his own abilities he had little faith, but he would not take credit for something of Thorin’s creation. ‘You played the melody of our adventures so far. I just wrote down what the harp strings were saying.’

He had never seen Thorin blush before. In truth, most of the dwarves seemed too brash and cocky for embarrassment, or they hid it well behind their beards. Yet there was no denying the flush that warmed Thorin’s cheeks, or the subtle pleasure that made his eyes gleam.

‘I do not think, Master Baggins, that I could ever be as eloquent as this.’

His hushed praise flowed like warm honey, sweet and tempting. At last, after so long of seeing nothing but determination from Thorin, Bilbo glimpsed a different facet: perhaps the dwarf he had once been, before the dragon came. The dwarf he could be again when they reclaimed his kingdom.

‘Please, call me Bilbo.’ He did not care if, to many hobbits, such a request would seem overly familiar. He was not among his own people anymore. Besides, they had been through too much to cling to ridiculous formalities.

‘Bilbo,’ Thorin repeated with a smile, his fingers tracing the ink upon the page lightly, as if he were afraid it would smudge to nothingness. ‘Dwarves do not have a way with words. There are a few, talented ones who smith our stories, but none with such ease and skill as this.’

From anybody else, Bilbo would have waved off the compliment as insincere hyperbole. Yet he knew enough of Thorin to realise he never gave undeserving praise. His words stirred the spark of emotion that shone bright in Bilbo’s chest, warming him through-and-through.

‘I don’t know of anyone,’ he said quietly, ‘of any race, who could compose so beautiful a melody.’ He gestured towards the harp that Thorin had left in his seat. For Beorn, perhaps, it was little more than a toy, but for Thorin it was a good size, almost too big to rest comfortably in his lap. ‘Especially on a borrowed instrument. Hobbits certainly have no such skill.’  
The steel blue of Thorin’s gaze softened further, the faint lines upon his face deepening as he smiled. When he spoke, low-voiced, there was a rasp beneath his words that made a shiver thrill down Bilbo’s spine.

‘It seems we still have much to learn of each other.’

Now it was Bilbo’s turn to blush, heat filling his cheeks as his lips parted. He watched Thorin’s smile widen before he turned away, returning to the harp and the siren-call of its strings. There was no demand for privacy, nor any hint of exclusion. Instead, Thorin angled towards him, including him in the process as the notes unfurled around them like a promise of things to come.

Perhaps his crush was not so hopeless after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Mim for my wonderful prompt! For more information on my fics, please visit [my tumblr](http://the-pen-pot.tumblr.com)!  
> B xxx


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